


Running From Thunder

by HalfshellVenus



Category: Justified
Genre: Gen, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalfshellVenus/pseuds/HalfshellVenus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(Pre-Series): Raylan and Boyd started out more similar than not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running From Thunder

**Author's Note:**

  * For [trainwreckdress](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trainwreckdress/gifts).



When Raylan was a boy, he used to run—out to the fields, or the woods, or anyplace else he could hide. His Daddy always said he'd beat Raylan harder if he ran, but Raylan knew that _later_ was never as dangerous as _now,_ not when his Daddy was angry and drunk and hell-bent on making somebody else pay for both.

Sometimes, Raylan came across Boyd Crowder out in those woods or under a tree at the far corner of a meadow. Boyd would be sitting there, staring off into space or reading a book, looking as if he had nowhere else to be that day. There never was such boy for reading as Boyd. He'd spend hours—even days—caught up in some book like it had his heart locked away inside it. 

It wasn't until years later that Raylan learned Boyd had an angry Daddy too. Boyd was running, just like Raylan was, but Boyd tried to be gone before the trouble even started.

Boyd Crowder planned _ahead_.

Raylan had no idea how Boyd so often seemed to _know,_ unless Bo Crowder's temper was set on 'always'—much like Arlo Givens'. Raylan couldn't seem to stay on Arlo's good side, not that he tried very hard. He despised the man and everything he stood for, but Raylan had nowhere else to go. 

It didn't help that with the Givens men, short-fused and stubborn ran both ways.

"All this stuff you're always belly-achin' about puts food on the table," Arlo said one night.

"And yet, with all the laws you break, it still ain't nearly enough!" 

Raylan ran out the door before Arlo's fists could find him, his feet carrying him to the stream that ran past the base of Harlan's tallest hill. Boyd was already there.

"I ain't never gonna be like him," Raylan said. "Crooked sonofabitch!"

Boyd nodded. "My Daddy's itchin' for me to take up the family business, but I've got far better ideas than that."

Raylan's only plan was leaving, but Boyd had whole worlds in mind, places and ideas Raylan had never even dreamed of.

Boyd's plans were bigger, but Raylan's were simple, and God only knew which of them might actually pull it off.

"I know it," was all Raylan said just then.

He hoped they'd both be lucky enough that all the vows they'd sworn to might someday actually manage to come true.

 

_\------ fin -----_


End file.
